Mount Sinai Hospital
opened in 1951 as a facility conceived and supported financially by Jewish
donors in an effort to provide a place for Jewish physicians who were denied
admitting privileges in other city hospitals. An auxiliary group primarily made
up of women from the Jewish communities around the Twin Cities provided support
through volunteering, publicity, and fundraising to aid the missions of the
hospital.

Researchers may quote from the collection under the fair use provision
of the copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code). Requests to publish should be
arranged with the Upper Midwest Jewish Archives; please contact the archives
for more detailed copyright information.

Arrangement

The collection is divided into series:

Series 1: Administrative Records

Series 2: Newsletters

Series 3: Publicity Scrapbooks

Historical Note

Mount Sinai Hospital, located at Chicago Avenue at 22nd St in
Minneapolis, opened its doors in February 1951 with the aims to provide a place
for Jewish physicians who had been denied admitting privileges at other city
hospitals, making it the first private non-sectarian hospital in the community
to accept members of minority races on its medical staff. The auxiliary was
formed in 1950 to support the hospital. In their five-year review report, the
Auxiliary illuminated their mission by saying: “When a group of people give a
hospital to the City, their job is not finished, it has just begun. They must
continue to work for the hospital. Their work is three fold: building good
public relations between the hospital and the city, personal relations between
its members, and giving service to the hospital both in funds and volunteer
work. The Mount Sinai Women’s Auxiliary was formed by women who wanted to be a
part of this program.” The group began by providing services such as a gift
shop, coffee shop, beauty shop and baby photo services. Their annual
fundraising balls and books sales were popular, and over its forty-one year
history raised over one million dollars for the hospital. The auxiliary folded
when the hospital merged with Metropolitan Medical Center and subsequently
closed its doors in 1991.

Collection Scope and Content Note

Records include administrative materials such as correspondence,
meeting minutes and financial statements of funds raised. Some administrative
materials related to Mt. Sinai Hospital directly and not to the Auxiliary are
also included. Newsletters include those directly from the Auxiliary as well as
Mt. Sinai Hospital employee newsletters. Scrapbooks of news clippings and
public relations surrounding the hospital are included, some of which are loose
pages that were unbound from the scrapbook; many of the pages and clippings are
in deteriorating condition and should be used with care.

Related Material

A large number of photographs related to the Mount Sinai Hospital
Auxiliary can be found in the Sharron and Oren Steinfeldt Photograph collection
(umja0017). View the finding aid here: http://purl.umn.edu/180450. Materials
related to Mount Sinai Hospital can also be found in the Mount Sinai Hospital
records (umja0003). View the finding aid here: http://purl.umn.edu/156060.

Subject Terms

Index Terms

This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog
of the University of Minnesota Libraries. Researchers desiring materials about
related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these
headings.